Empathy
by mad-cow-mama
Summary: MIT Britt has to find a way to get Rachel back in time.


Here's the hard part— the only reason this process is this far along is love.

_Rachel. Brittany. Love? Um, No._

Brittany is sitting on the bed, wrapped around sleeping Rachel, holding her tightly against herself, sinking into the space where she could persuade strings apart, where she could capture the building blocks of her time travel devices, when the solution occurs to her.

_Without empathy, she'll never be able to get Rachel back where she belongs._

In order to expedite persuading the strings apart, she has to contain and convey both their experiences of division and loss, not just her own.

See, at first the strings wouldn't budge. They wouldn't come close enough for Brittany to see clearly. They wouldn't show their vulnerabilities. Then the warmth of the girl pressed against her began to wake her up.

Brittany hadn't attended Finn's funeral. She remembers that she'd been in the middle of— of something— super important— if only she could remember what it was… And she knew Santana would be there, and actually, Brittany simply couldn't bear it. And actually, she had nothing to wear. And actually, it was Finn, and she couldn't manage to care.

Finn had outed Santana. Finn had treated Santana like a whore. Pompous Finn, pouting Finn, punching Finn. Finn disgusted Brittany. It was easy to forget about Rachel loving him. Like, how could anyone after the way he'd acted?

_That was years ago._

But when Rachel's warmth soaks in deeper than skin, a bit of the old frozen armor opens, allowing Brittany to sense the split bits in Rachel. Like half of her will never return.

Like Brittany's other half will never return. Because she's never come along for the ride.

_That_ pain. That old old pain. The pain so familiar she's almost stopped sensing it. She sinks into the cleft between herself and Santana and feels again being left behind, abandoned, ignored. And through that fissure she begins to sense Rachel's loss. Rachel. Abrasive, sometimes abusive Rachel, so intently focused on her own pursuits that she only seems to regard others as impediments or facilitators, Rachel who brings out the meanest streak in Brittany, fucking Rachel.

_Who lost Finn._

Brittany cringes away from Rachel's pain. Who can empathize with someone who has treated her with disdain, like a servant, as if she's stupid? Who can empathize with someone who's used her? (Although certainly that goes both ways— they used each other.) It's a good thing Rachel's sleeping. _Her_ resistance would make this boundary completely impassible. But Rachel, despite her irritating and self-serving nature, is human. And Finn, despite his appalling behavior and his blind narcissism, was human. And they loved each other. And they lost each other. Forever.

There may be a rift between Brittany and Santana, but there is a chasm between Rachel and Finn. It's a canyon, too wide to connect with a gondola.

Brittany sinks into it. Feels the loss. Feels the love. Feels the connection. She sinks deeper.

And as Brittany subsumes the split inside Rachel and experiences her own again, wide open, without guarding herself from the pain, the strings flock closer, become apparent, and, sympathetic with her — can a one-dimensional particle be sympathetic? — show her their pain, too. They reveal their weak points. They allow her to persuade them to part, just for a little while, not forever.

Only enough for one round trip.

So she resolves to make it work, nevermind _she'll_ be extinguished. She'll make it work for _them_. Maybe all of them.

Rachel rouses as Brittany closes the containers around the strands. Brittany catches her eyes and gazes into them. She places a finger across Rachel's lips.

"Now you can't talk, okay, because you'll scare off the tiny unicorns and then we can't get you back. Understand?"

Rachel almost shakes, then nods her head. Brittany removes her finger from Rachel's mouth.

"Brit—"

"Shhh! Okay. You'll have to wrap yourself around me as tight as you can and hold on like quarks in a hadron."

Rachel closes her mouth and gazes back. They sink into each other for several moments. Brittany's mind protests, but her heart connects, and as her heart connects, her mind softens enough around Rachel to revise its position. Brittany sees love in Rachel. Brittany senses love in Rachel. There is still love in Rachel. For a moment, Brittany— _loves_— Rachel. And Rachel— is _still_.

It has to be precise. They both have to imagine fully the moment Rachel opens the pocket watch, so they can return just _then_ and no earlier. So they build the story together, so they can recite it together, in unison, flawlessly. They have to break it down, into moments, into instants, to retrieve the exact pinpoint, to codify it, to be absolutely clear.

Now Rachel holds on, her warmth enveloping Brittany, seeping down into her cold cold heart and melting that rock to its core. Brittany needs all her capacity for love to complete this mission. Love for Rachel, love for Santana, love for herself, _then_. And, in a way, _now_. She softens from the inside out, senses Rachel softening too, finds her humanity, finds her understanding of loss, and loves, just for these moments, _loves_ Rachel. Brittany gives the signal to start.

They recite together, focusing on the point, the exact point in time and space, where Rachel was when she made the time trip. And slowly Brittany opens the container.

It works a bit like a rubber band stretched between nails in a grid. Their imagination stretches the band to the point in time and space they are pinpointing, then after a short amount of time, the band snaps them, well, the idea is just Brittany, back to the origin point. Nobody's ever made a non-symmetrical time trip before, so really it's all theoretical.

The _blue_ surrounds them, Rachel molding her body around Brittany's, and they both chill through. They have to maintain focus. Reciting together the story they've built, they pinpoint themselves into _then_ and land, cold and exhausted, in a heap, in Santana's room.

For a little while, Brittany can fight off the rest she'll need to recover, but she knows Rachel will fall asleep again in a moment or two.

She rifles Rachel's clothing for her phone. She takes Rachel by the chin.

"Rachel Berry, I have one last thing to say to you. Call Quinn," Brittany enunciates. She taps in a text: _Come to New York_. She hits Send.

Then she finds her favorite color lipstick and leaves a message on the mirror for Santana.

_"Baby, come home. —B."_

Time becomes elastic, _blue_ surrounds her, and Brittany is gone.


End file.
